Tony & Tami Aftab – The Rice Is On The Hob

WEPRESENT 2024

Edition of 750
24.7 x 29.2 cm
160 Pages

“The initials of two brothers scratched into wood. Cutlets with peas after school. Looking up to a perfect rectangle of sky. Eggs and bread in Hounslow. A tower made of charity shop caps. Murgh makhani. Chana palak. Khichri. The rice is on the hob. The dog’s in the car. Don’t forget your teeth, Dad. That last one makes you laugh but you’re unsure why.”

Tony Aftab lives with short term memory loss, that occurred as a result of an accident in operation almost 30 years ago for his brain condition hydrocephalus. Despite Tony’s short term memory loss affecting his day-to-day life, he has always retained the memory of dishes from his childhood.

The father and daughter pair have long dreamed of co-authoring a photobook-meets-cookbook, in which Tami’s photographs would sit alongside Tony’s recipes. Growing up, Tami found that one of the greatest connections she had to her Pakistani heritage was through food. Landing in Pakistan with Tony in February this year to shoot their latest series was at first disorientating and even overwhelming at times, to be in a space that is so unknown and yet so familiar. “But then I taste the food,” she says with a smile, “and that feels like home to me.”

Includes a £5 donation to Muslim Hands to rebuild homes destroyed from the 2022 Pakistan floods.